Ruby Grace Sweet is wiping off the red-checked tablecloths on the tables in the main dining room. There is another smaller seldom used dining room upstairs beneath a sloped timbered ceiling.  When she is finished wiping off the tablecloths, Ruby Grace will refill all of the salt and peppershakers.

        Then if it isn’t too crowded, and it never is, she will sweep and mop the floors of the restaurant where she has been working since moving back to her hometown of Clintwood, Virginia. The name of the place is, “The Front Porch,” but, there is no longer a front porch, the town council forced the owner to remove it because it was too close to the street. There is one man sitting in the corner reading a newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. Refills on coffee are free.

        While she works, Ruby Grace hums a song by Allison Kraus, and thinks about her daughter Jessie.  Jessie is twelve years old, and in the sixth grade, she should be in the seventh grade, but she lost one year while Ruby Grace was traveling with the band. 

        Ruby Grace is waiting for her big break; she has been waiting since she graduated high school, fifteen years ago.  While she waits to be discovered, she works as a waitress; she’s good at it because she’s a people person, unlike her mother Charlotte who seems to hate everybody.

        Ruby Grace knows moving around so much has been difficult for Jessie, especially in school.  She’s a smart kid, a tom-boy who prefers jeans and tee shirts to anything else. She doesn’t make friends easily.

        This move to Virginia has been particularly hard on Jessie, what with starting another new school and getting to know her grandmother Charlotte.  Jessie saw her grandmother only once before, when she was four years old.  Ruby Grace only called Charlotte on her birthday; or at Christmas, or when she ran out of money.

        Ruby Grace is starting to think it was a mistake to move back to Virginia, a mistake to move in with her mother. Under the circumstances though, she thinks she really had no other choice.  When she asked Charlotte for a loan so that she could record a demo of her singing, Charlotte agreed with two conditions: Ruby Grace had to move back to Virginia with Jessie, and live with her for one year; and she could not tell Jessie the truth about her father.  After the year is up, if Ruby Grace still wants to pursue her singing career, Charlotte will loan her the money.

         Jessie doesn’t know about the agreement between her mother and grandmother.  Ruby Grace knows if she told Jessie it wouldn’t make any difference to the girl.  She was happy in Florida. For the first time in her life, she had a close friend; his name was Orbin and he rented one of the trailers in the court where they used to live.
 Orbin is sixty-five years old; part Seminole Indian and Jessie thinks he hung the moon. Orbin taught Jessie how to fish, how to change a tire, and how to track wild animals through the swamp.  He was teaching her the legends of the Seminole people when Ruby Grace agreed to move to Virginia.  At first Ruby Grace was suspicious of Orbin. Why would he befriend a twelve-year-old girl? As it turns out, he is a nice old guy who just misses his grandchildren who all live in Savannah.

         Jessie pitched a fit when Ruby Grace told her they were leaving Florida. “Why do you hate me so much?”  She screamed at Ruby Grace.  “I don’t want to move!  I’m sick of moving around all of the time!  I want to stay here!”
Now, Jessie barely speaks to her mother.  She is not doing well in school; she has no friends, and she has started stealing things.  Ruby Grace found Jessie’s loot in an old trunk in the attic. There are tubes of lipstick, unopened packs of pencils and erasers, a small jewelry box with the requisite ballerina on top, and three egg-shaped glass paperweights, each with a different color swirled inside.  The oddest thing she found was a book of poetry, “Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle.”  Ruby Grace had not known Jessie liked poetry.  But, she had not known she was a thief either.

        There was no money, not a cent; Ruby Grace supposes she should be glad about that.  She’s been down on her luck many times in her life, but she has never stolen a thing.  She has no idea what is going on with Jessie. 
She plans to talk to Jessie that afternoon when she gets home from work.  The stealing has to stop; and Jessie has to start doing better at school. Ruby Grace is scared that Charlotte will find out what is going on, and ask them to leave.  Then she won’t get the money she needs to make the demo.

         Ruby Grace is not surprised that her mother has not changed at allover the years.  Charlotte’s main priority in life, according to her daughter, is making sure that everyone else thinks well of her. She bases all of her decisions on this one desire. It is why she works in a bank; it is why she volunteers at the nursing home, even though it depresses her to go there. It is why she attends the Methodist church.  The Methodist church is the largest church in town and the church that the most affluent of the townspeople attend.

        Ruby Grace shudders to think what would happen if Charlotte ever finds out that her granddaughter is a tiny redheaded thief. 

         Outside the weather is miserable; it is raining again. The wind is whipping bits of trash and dried leaves around the parking lot.  Ruby Grace looks up from what she is doing and watches the wind catch a small white coffee cup, and make it dance.

         Later when a customer comes in, a nice-looking guy with his brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail; Ruby Grace looks around for the new girl, she’s no where in sight as usual. She pushes her thoughts of Jessie to the back of her mind. With the dishcloth in one hand, she sashays up to the front to take the guys order.

        A few miles away at the Clintwood Elementary School, it is lunchtime ;and Jessie Sweet is trying hard to ignore the group of girls who are taunting her.

        “If that Brandi Watson says one more word I’m going to pop her one.”  Jessie thinks.

         Brandi is the ringleader of the group.  She has made it her mission in life to make Jessie miserable since the first day of school, two months ago.

        Jessie’s grandmother, Charlotte, works as a secretary for Brandi’s father at the largest bank in town. Jessie reminds herself of this fact while counting to ten.  According to her best friend Orbin, who is part Seminole Indian, and a very patient guy, counting is suppose to help her control her temper.  So far it has not worked.
Jessie grabs for her cap again.  She is smaller than the other girls are; Brandi easily dodges her and tosses the cap to someone else. The girls all laugh at Jessie’s frustration. 

        “Give it back, Brandi!”  Jessie says.  One of the girls crams the cap on her head backwards.  Jessie moves towards her, but Brandi blocks her way.  Brandi is a short, pudgy girl with frizzy brown hair. 

        “Why should I?”  Brandi smirks.

        “Because it’s mine!”  Jessie says and lunges for the cap again. Orbin gave her the cap; it has the emblem of the Florida Marlins on the front. They used to watch all of their games together.  Jessie wears the cap everywhere she goes.  She cannot wear it inside the school building, so she keeps it in her backpack.  Brandi snatched it while Jessie was returning her tray.

         Brandi gave Jessie a shove.  “Well I think it looks better on Heather.” 

         Jessie feels the blood rush to her face, her heart is pounding so hard she is certain if she looks down she will see it beating through her shirt.  She is humiliated and she is mad, madder than she has ever been at anyone in her life.

         Years later, she will look back on that day and believe that at that moment in time, she really could have killed Brandi Watson.  Had Brandi dissolved, melted, right in front of her, like the wicked witch in Oz; she would have laughed and clapped her hands in delight.

          However, that didn’t happen, Brandi didn’t melt, and she didn’t kill her. Instead, Brandi stood there smirking at her as she got even madder and then started to cry.   Everyone at the table was laughing at her.  Their laughter roared like ocean waves in her ears.    In her entire life, Jessie would never hate anyone as much as she did Brandi Watson on that cold November day in 1994.

        In the face of her anger,  Jessie’s promises to herself to not get in anymore trouble at school flew out the window.

        Through her tears, she screams at Brandi, “You just wait Brandi Watson, you’ll see, one of these days I’ll prove it to you! You don’t know everything! I will play major league baseball, I will, you just wait and see!  I am going to have a great life, a life so…

         Jessie searches her mind for the perfect word, and then she remembers the word of the day. Mrs. Mullins, their teacher gives them a new word to learn each morning. That morning the word she gave them to use in a sentence was, “splendid”.  “I’m going to have a life so splendid it will just make you sick with envy!”  
At that Brandi retorted, “In a pig’s eye you will, it’s just like my mama always says,” Brandi could mimic her mother’s caustic voice perfectly, “White trash is white trash.  You’re just like your mother Jessie Sweet; you’ll never amount to anything, you’ll never be anything but a waitress either!”

         Jessie stops trying to stuff her books and papers back into her backpack.  It is one thing for Brandi to make fun of her, but she is not about to let her get away with making fun of Ruby Grace.  She turns around to face Brandi.  “Take that back, Brandi, right now!”

         Brandi took a step backwards, “What if I don’t want to?” She smirked.

         “Then I’ll have to make you take it back.”  Jessie warns. 

        “You can’t make me do anything!”  Brandi isn’t laughing anymore, and the other girls have all sat back down.
  “Wanna bet?” 

        “Go ahead; you just try to make me take it back.”  Brandi blustered.

         “O.K.,” Jessie is not crying anymore, “You asked for it!”  Too late Brandi realizes what is coming.  She turns her head to the right a split second before Jessie’s small fist connects with her jaw.

         Brandi put her hand up to her mouth, the corner of her lip is bleeding; she looks at Jessie, her eyes blazing, “You’re going to regret doing that!”  Then she starts howling. 

         Jessie ignores her. She turns around and shoves her things into her backpack. She knows Brandi’s screaming will alert the teacher on lunch duty.  She will be ready to go to the principal’s office when it does.

        Mrs. Gibson, the principal at Jessie’s school, calls Ruby Grace at work and asks her to come in to the office and pick Jessie up. Unfortunately, Jessie is expelled for fighting. Gibson informed Ruby Grace that Jessie hit a girl at lunch; and according to several eyewitnesses, she was the one who started the fight for no apparent reason.  Jessie cannot return to school until the following Wednesday morning.
As they walk out of the school building together, Ruby Grace looks over at Jessie, and says, “Well you’ve done it this time!”

        “What are you talking about?” Jessie pulls open the car door and slides in. Being expelled does not bother her; she’s glad to be going home. She is already planning how she will spend her free time.
“There’s no way I can keep this from Charlotte!”  Ruby Grace turns the key in the ignition of the old Chevy Malibu, and silently prays that the engine turns over.

        “I don’t care if you tell her.”  Jessie says defiantly.  “She hates me anyway.”

        “She does not hate you, Jessie, and you should care; where do you think we’d be right now if your grandmother wasn’t helping us out?”

        “Florida!”  Jessie shouts.

        “Listen kid, don’t shout at me, you’re already in trouble; don’t make it any worse!”  Ruby Grace looks over at Jessie.  Jessie is staring straight ahead.  She looks so tiny and so sad it breaks Ruby Grace’s heart to see her so unhappy.  “Look, just tell me what the fight was about O. K.?”

         Jessie looks at her mother.  Ruby Grace is wearing one of her “outfits.”  Jessie begged Mrs. Gibson not to call her mother. Mrs. Gibson thought Jessie was afraid of what her mother would say to her.   Jessie didn’t want the other kids to see the way Ruby Grace dresses.  Today, she is wearing her Martina McBride outfit, tight leggings and black boots with three-inch heels. And Jessie hates that Ruby Grace always wears so much jewelry. She reminds Jessie of a Christmas tree.  Ruby Grace believes in dressing for the stage even when there is no stage in sight.

          Her mother’s wardrobe is the only thing Jessie agrees with Charlotte on; they both think she should burn everything and start over.

        “So, tell me what was it about?  Why did you hit that girl, Brandi, that’s her name right?”  Ruby Grace asks again.

         For just one second, Jessie is tempted to tell her what Brandi said about them both. But she can’t do it.  She doesn’t want to see the look of hurt that would pass over her mother’s face if she knew.

        “She took my cap; she wouldn’t give it back so I hit her.”

        “That’s all that happened. You got mad enough to hit someone over that cap!” Ruby Grace looks over at Jessie; her strawberry blonde curls are sticking out from under the treasured cap. She has a feeling there is much more to the story than Jessie is telling her, but decides not to push it.

        “Yep.”  Jessie says.

        “Well I want you to apologize to her, when you go back to school.”

         Jessie whirled around to face her mother.  “Are you kidding me? You want me to apologize to Brandi, she started it, she should apologize to me!”

        “You hit her.  You shouldn’t have done that. You should have told a teacher that she had your cap, let them get it back.”

        “You just don’t have a clue, do you?”

        “What’s that suppose to mean?”  Ruby Grace touches her fingertips to her temple.  She feels a headache coming on.

        “Brandi Watson’s father is the president of the largest bank in this town.” Jessie says. She wishes she had a nickel for every time she has heard Charlotte say the exact same thing.

        “So, that doesn’t mean she’s any better than you are.”  Ruby Grace flips her signal and pulls into the driveway beside her mother’s house.

         The old white house glows in the waning sunlight.  Charlotte is already home, she can see her through one of the windows; moving around in the kitchen, starting supper. The house once belonged to Ruby Grace’s grandparents. It stands two stories tall, with a wrap-around porch and long white-curtained windows.  Ruby Grace notices that the maple tree to the left of the house has not lost its golden leaves yet. She sighs deeply, she is so tired, and she still has to talk to Jessie about the stuff she found in the trunk.

        “Listen,” she begins, “Forget about Brandi for now, I want to talk to you about something else.”
Jessie looks at her mother, instantly suspicious. “What’s going on?”

        “I want to know what’s going on with you; I want to know why you’re stealing things?” 
Jessie’s mouth drops open.

        “Don’t even try to deny it.  I found your stash the other day, up in the attic in that old trunk of grandma’s.”
Jessie is indignant.  “Why were you messing around in my stuff?”

        “The price tags are still on everything.  Those things don’t belong to you.”

        “I bought those things with my allowance.”  Jessie lies.  She doesn’t really think Ruby Grace will fall for it, but it’s worth a shot.

         Her mother laughs.  “I give you your allowance; I know you can’t afford to buy that much junk.”

        “It’s not junk.”  Jessie says defensively.

        “Why did you steal those things, Jessie, did you really want all of that stuff bad enough to steal it?”
Jessie starts crying.  “No!  I don’t know why I do it.  I never did it before we came here. I go in to a store and I mean to just look around, you know, and then I see all the stuff they have to sell;  it’s all so bright, and new I just can’t help taking it. Then for just a little while I’ll feel better about…well things.”

         Ruby Grace is crying too, she did not realize Jessie was so miserable.  “It makes you feel better about what things, Jessie, what are you talking about?  I know you miss Florida and Orbin; maybe he can come up here for a visit, would you like that?   If its something else, tell me, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on?” 
Jessie can hear the frustration in her mother’s voice, and realizes an opportunity that may not come again.  “I thought when we moved up here I would finally get to know my dad.”

        “Oh God, Jessie, not that again! You know I don’t want to talk about that!  Maybe when you’re older, but not now.”  Ruby Grace starts to open the door on her side.

        “Why won’t you tell me who he is?  What can it hurt? I promise not to go running to him, and calling him “daddy,” or anything.” This is exactly what she’s been planning to do the second she finds out who he is; but she knows she can’t tell Ruby Grace.   

         Ruby Grace looks at her child.  Jessie doesn’t know it, but she looks so much like her father.  She has the same blue eyes, the same sweet smile, and the same stubborn chin.  She wishes she could tell Jessie everything, but she can’t.  She stands too lose too much if Jessie ever finds out the truth about her father.  “I am not getting into this now.  I want you to take all of that stuff back, tomorrow, understand?” 

         Jessie glares at her mother.  “You just don’t want me to know him.  You’re afraid he’ll like me better than you!”  Jessie pushes open the door and starts to get out.  Ruby Grace’s next words stop her.
 “Jessie there’s no way you’re ever going to get to know your father.”  There is only one thing Ruby Grace can risk telling Jessie about her father.

        “Why!”  Jessie shouts.

        “Because he died a long time ago.”  The instant Ruby Grace says the words she wishes she could take them back.

         Jessie slumped against her seat, holding back the tears that stung her eyes. “What?  What do you mean; he died? He can’t be dead!  You’re lying!  I don’t believe you!”  The beautiful dream Jessie has held close to her heart for so many years died with her mother’s words.

        “Jessie I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you like this; but you just kept at me all of the time about it.  I swear to you it’s the truth.  He died a long time ago,  right here in this town.  That’s why I never wanted to come back here before.”

        “If it’s true why didn’t you just tell me?” 

        “I didn’t think it would hurt to wait until you were older.”  Ruby Grace gives her the only answer she can.
“Where, where is he…you know?”  Jessie hesitates, but she has to know.

        “In the Phipps Cemetery, the one we just passed.”

        “Can we visit his grave sometime, just you and me?”

         Ruby Grace pretends not to hear the question.  “Jessie I’m really beat.  Promise you’ll take all of that stuff back tomorrow; and don’t say a word to Charlotte o.k.?”  She opens the car door and gets out.

         Jessie slowly nods her head.  “I promise.  Can I sit here for a little while?”

         Ruby Grace leans down to peer across the car seat at Jessie.  “Don’t stay out here too long, it’s getting cold.”
Jessie watches her mother walk to the house and go inside.  Then she reaches behind the car seat for her backpack.  The backpack is old, beat up, and made of brown leather.  Ruby Grace used it a long time ago. Charlotte gave it to Jessie a couple of weeks after they moved in with her.  Jessie carries it everywhere she goes.  It is big and roomy.  It will hold most anything Jessie wants to put in it.

         A new gift shop opened up on Walnut Street.  It is a small quaint store owned by an elderly couple; they have many beautiful things to sell.  Jessie knows this because she visited the store yesterday afternoon.
From the old backpack, Jessie takes a small oval picture frame.  The tag says it is ten-karat gold plated; it is the most expensive thing Jessie has stolen so far.  With her shirttail, she polishes the glass, and then she sits with the frame on her knees, tilting it first one way and then the other; admiring the way it picks up the late afternoon sunlight.  Jessie thinks the frame is beautiful, but that is not the reason she took it.  At night she places it on her bedside table, it is the last thing she sees before she goes to sleep; and the first thing she sees when she wakes up. Some nights she practices kissing the picture inside the frame goodnight.  

         After awhile, she wraps the frame back up inside several layers of paper towels she got at school; and then she puts it carefully back inside the backpack.  She plans to hide it somewhere safe; somewhere Ruby Grace or her grandmother will never think to look.

         Jessie thinks she would not be able to bear it; if they took the frame away from her, with the photograph inside it, of the smiling, dark-haired man, his arm around the little girl sitting next to him.